TV manufacturers may wish to provide TVs with built-in interactive devices, e.g., personal video recorders (PVR), optical disk players such as Blu-Ray disk players and digital video disk (DVD) players and the like, so that a customer conveniently need purchase only the TV with interactive devices in a single seamless system. As recognized by the present assignee, it would be further desirable to provide the interactive devices with the TV in modular form so that as new and upgraded interactive devices become available, the TV system may be upgraded by replacing an old module with a new one without having to purchase an entirely new TV system.
The fusion of television with the Internet is a continuing goal that has spawned systems making it convenient for viewers to access content from both conventional TV sources and the Internet using a single TV chassis. In this way, the number of programs that can be made available to people using the familiar technology of television can be expanded enormously.